Space, well although I've started composing some of the graphics for our sports page, nothing is up on the web quite yet. All I've done to date is reserved our space, and this time I've got a password to prove it. And as for your party, I'll try to book a flight out this afternoon. Just kidding, although I'd dog being there.

I am interested in reading your take on co-dependence. What I know I guess I've gathered from the popshrinks on the boob tube talk show circuit, and they are usually referring to women who depend too much financially on the continued good graces of their men, a BAD thing, mouth the popoffs paid to mutter inanities to the glee of women striking a blow for independence everywhere. Women, the line goes, never know when a man will dump them or begin to exploit and control them with powerplays of one sort or another, and unless the woman can support herself financially she is usually stuck in these souring relationships, begrudgingly called co-dependent. I have never heard the word used in a favorable light outside my own periodic rants. Some psycho-hipsters stretch their definition to include overly strong or needy emotional attachments to their significant other, and again, 99.9% of the time, no let's tell the truth here, a full one hundred percent of the time, it's the women who are counseled to put some distance between themselves and the man, to feel secure in themselves without the need to define themselves through a man's eyes or bank account.

Now in the Thy household, our roles are somewhat reversed, although I still remain the strong, in my case, artistic opinionated male to Sue's deferring weaker female worker bee cast. It works for us because that is who we are as persons. Where the system breaks down is when we are so completely merged in ourselves that we don't like and can barely suffer being apart, even when we are having fun away from the other, which is rare since we seldom depart from each other except when executing routine chores, the major example being when Sue trots off to work. But we chat on the phone usually several times a day, and always just before she leaves the office. In other words, I always (except a few troubled times in the past when indeed our tight regime showed holes) know where she is, and she me. We LIKE it that way. In this sense we run contrary to the nifty modern co-dependency rule. She has the POWER of fiscal control. I bring my own control to the table with my wit and intelligence. WE BECAME ONE, as was once upon a time the ideal held up to us.

Most of this thing called love works its manipulations at the subconscious level, but nevertheless is easily understood in the proper lighting. Homo sapiens is a conquering species. Those too weak to conquer become adept at compromising and more subtle ways of manipulation, always cloaking its weakness in self-qualifying shifts of meaning and social collusion.

Yet, these same popheads counseling women to seek their own financial independence would tell Sue to dump me because I am merely USING her. I suppose that makes sense in their book which charges that a person is nothing more than a bank account, not a complex algorithm of flesh, bones and idea. There is no "grand union" worth its grain of salt for these attackers of the co-dependent family unit. None of the "old" ways produced perfection for all parties, therefore let's trash the old, and bring in the new, bark the modern dogs of marriage advocacy. While admitting the possibility that this scenario works in some, maybe an arbitrary half of all marital situations, simply the inspiration of separate banks accounts does not a strong relationship make. Marriage is a creative process. And while all the negative, or should we say, agitating, aspects of the two versus one calculus of happiness you have outlined are worth noting as real and absolutely required considerations when opting to expand one's fiscal and emotional domain, agitation is the very nature of the blood, and the impetus of the game called love. Love is an overused, thus bogus concept in today's language. There is lust, and there is surreal attachment to another.

The first, while scientists dig deeper to understand its exact mechanisms and evolutionary purposes, is simpler for the average homo sapien to comprehend, if not in its head, at least in its loins. Whereas the latter is simply the sum of all random choices and intelligence nursed by the individual seeking to exploit ALL the worldly and other worldly for lack of a better term materials currently within one's moxy or reach. I don't know who will accept that last statement as a very sufficient definition of love, but it works for me. Anything more superficial than this is exactly thatbogus as a politician's promises. Most love is lust. Some love is simply obedience to presumed or assumed responsibility. Other love is simply a meek acceptance of one's own limitations and a futile desire for companionship, because man still qualifies as a social creature despite his long history of antisocial behavior. Most of this thing called love works its manipulations at the subconscious level, but nevertheless is easily understood in the proper lighting. Homo sapiens is a conquering species. Those too weak to conquer become adept at compromising and more subtle ways of manipulation, always cloaking its weakness in self-qualifying shifts of meaning and social collusion.

To conclude my speech sir (LOL), let me say that despite the raw truth that marriage is damned risky business, when elevated back to the level of a game in which the participants are the only wild cards entitled to write the rules, I'd say it's a wager worth riskingonce two people in this topsy turvy culture we call homeshakes enough courage out of their feeble composures to give it a shot.

And never tell a lie.

Fats

P.S. The Capitol Hill site will be focussed on local politics. Don't know if I ever told you or not but I was an elected official here once, elected to a two year term in November of 1990. I resigned prematurely in April, 1992 after getting elected chair of the12-member Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6B in Capitol Hill (330 ANCs, citywide) in a fierce fight, and after indicating some equally fierce good housekeeping changes were at hand, I had my own pseudosupporters boycotting the meetings so no quorum could be reached, thus no official vote, no action. I vacated. My successor, who by the way had been trying to get elected chair for ten years, moved up from vice-chair and cleaned up the place somewhat, including firing the executive secretary who a thousand ways deserved the boot. This story is deep in details, but I'll leave you with that for now.

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